Keeping House
by Neva
Summary: Set before the events of the movies. A look at life under the same roof as the great illusionist.


A/N: Funny, those plotbunnies that hit you in the middle of end-of-fall-term madness. Funnier when they're full of mind control and creepiness with barely an anti-Xavier moment to be found. Hope you enjoy.   
  
Disclaimer: Whatever rumors you have heard about poor fanfic writers like myself owning the denizens of the X-Men universe... are lies.   
  
_  
Her lungs are white-hot from lack of oxygen. The water fills her ears, her nose, as she's sucked under in a mad riptide. She can taste it, salty and sour and cold and green and everywhere. She flails her arms, thrashes, but it's no use. Something wet and slimy with lots of tentacles lands on her face, and she screams, and the water rushes in without mercy...._  
  
She coughs and spits and gasps for breath like all the air in the room is going to disappear in the next five seconds. And yes, it's a room, their living room that she decorated herself. A quick check ensures that her hair and clothes are completely dry and that there's no seaweed clinging to her face. No taste of salt in her mouth. She doesn't trust her legs to support her, that's a little too much to ask for, but she can breathe. She's safe.  
  
For now.  
  
Out of the corner of one eye, Karen can see the heel of a dirty sneaker and one swinging arm disappearing from the top of the staircase into the second-floor hallway. This is the third time Jason's hit her with the drowning nightmare. It's not his worst, not as terrible as the ones that made her afraid for a while to look at or touch the man she still thinks she loves (despite everything, yes?) or to face her own reflection in the mirror. But with each try, this one has been a little different, a little more convincing, a little more real. He's getting stronger, and how the hell is she supposed to make him stop? Ground him? Keeping him inside isn't a punishment, it's a necessity. Take away his privileges? Hah. His mind -- and his parents -- are the only toys he needs.  
  
There's nothing any of them can do about it.  
  
_He can't help us.  
  
He said that?  
  
Oh, he made some ridiculous offer. Take him in.' Teach him responsibility and control.'_  
  
This with a contemptuous sneer, as if responsibility and control are the most repellant ideas in the known universe. Or the most impossible ones.  
  
_But isn't that what we want?  
_  
The look on her husband's face when she'd asked that made the answer all too clear. As if, he had seemed to say, anyone could be so stupid.  
  
But she hadn't been stupid. Foolish, maybe. Wrong, yes. Scared, absolutely, although she'd done a good job of hiding it then. But even as she fear for their son and for their future... even then... she couldn't help hoping as well. Until even that had vanished, incinerated by the blazing hatred in his eyes.  
  
_So what's going to happen now?  
  
_Now he's upstairs in his room. She doesn't clean it anymore, won't let anyone else set foot inside, either. She doesn't even know what it looks like inside. Of course, it doesn't matter much what things _really_ look like, not to him.  
  
And there's nothing, _nothing_, that they can do about it. Her husband isn't going to return, like the knight in shining armor she once believed him to be, and rescue her. He's thousands of miles away. She kissed him in the doorway only a week before, almost perfunctorily, then turned to Jason, encouraging him to say goodbye to his father, pretending that they were a normal family.  
  
Pretend.  
  
Not real.  
  
None of it was real.  
  
And Karen knew, before she'd spoken, that he would only stare at them bitterly. She felt herself flinch, visibly, but nothing happened.  
  
She remembers William standing there for a long moment, completely silent, before turning and walking out the door without a backward glance.  
  
She hates him sometimes, for having been so stubborn. For leaving.  
  
Just like she hates Xavier, for being unable or unwilling to to give them what they wanted. Because she wants it too, now. She thinks maybe that all of them do.  
  
And she hates herself for not learning to be the strong one. Not just strong enough to resist the illusions, but to see him as nothing but a burden, a menace, a threat. Something to be feared, not pitied.  
  
Not loved.  
  
The first day they were alone together in the house, she started taking family pictures off the walls. Pictures from before, from school events and and parties and the few vacations they'd found the time to take, and that had been worth it. She put them away in boxes, and stored the boxes away in the attic, not quite bringing herself to throw them away. For the same reason, she knows, that she can't just pack a few things and go, leaving him to his mad fantasies.  
  
She hates herself for that.  
  
Slowly, carefully, she stands. _Can_ she still stand? Yes. She can even make it all the way to the kitchen, where she'll make a couple of sandwiches for lunch. Chicken salad for her -- she can't remember if there's any left over -- and banana-honey for him.  
  
She can think about things like work and friends, that are all now distant memories which seem almost to belong to someone else.  
  
She can think about how she's not sure what she looks like anymore.  
  
She can hear his footsteps behind her. Trapping her.  
  
Turning around, she steadies her voice. Good. Good. Jason, don't do this. I love you. We both do. We never wanted to hurt you. Please don't hurt us. Please --  
  
_-- don't leave your shoes on the floor like that. It's the third evening in a row she's had to say that, and they both know it. Put them in the closet.  
  
Sorry, Mom. He shoots her a disarming grin, one that she's sure is already melting the hearts of half the young women at his high school, although he won't say if there's one girl in particular. He's a bit skinny, and he needs a haircut, but with that smile and those eyes, not to mention his wild imagination and sense of humor, it's only a matter of time.  
  
Set the table, William directs in his best military-commander voice.  
  
And Jason responds, as always, with a perfect but completely sardonic salute. Yes, sir!  
  
His drawings decorate the refigerator, although he's complained countless times that he's too old for them to be put on display like that. Intricately designed futuristic cities. Aliens with stars for eyes and feathers for hair. Mythical creatures, from a dragon whose scales had been filled in so precisely, to a magnificent phoenix that looks like it might fly off the paper and scorch the linoleum.   
  
The fading light from outside casts long shadows on the walls. Soon they will sit down, and eat, and ask each other questions about their respective days, and everything will be perfect. And then their boy will go upstairs to start on his homework, and the two of them will look at each other, and smile.  
  
Karen drops her fork on the floor suddenly. The clang is suddenly the loudest thing in the room; even their voices have faded._  
  
She backs up as far as she can, not bothering to pick up whatever she's let fall to the floor. He's had his fun, watching her face while she dreamed of what might have been. That was his real nourishment. And now he's gone again.  
  
He should have left her in that world.  
  
Appetite gone, energy gone, Karen Stryker leans against the wall and cries.  
  



End file.
